When Mills & Reeve identified a need to upgrade its existing wireless provider to offer customers more robust, reliable and faster connectivity, Meraki’s cloud-based WiFi was the unanimous choice.

Business Driver
Mills & Reeve needed wireless capabilities that would allow employees to roam freely around different sites and to provide customers with access to the internet when on site. The firm wanted a new infrastructure that was strong, secure and performed to a consistently high level, with zero downtime. Ensuring high user satisfaction and increased productivity were important considerations.

Why Meraki Wireless LAN
Meraki’s ease of use as a cloud-managed service, that offers total network visibility, set it apart from other competing solutions. After checking the technology’s position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Mills & Reeve was certain that Meraki was best of breed and would offer its customers a superior experience.

Business Benefits
Meraki has radically increased Mills & Reeve’s user satisfaction levels and overall user experience. It has also raised productivity by offering a reliable, secure and robust system that is easy to navigate around and can be deployed in thirty minutes.

Background
Mills & Reeve is one of the UK’s leading law firms, and has been ranked number one by Chambers UK in 26 of its practice areas, which is the highest percentage of any top law firm. The company has many commercial clients including Global and UK based businesses, FTSE and AIM listed organisations, private companies and start-ups; and has always been particularly client-focused. Boasting over 800 staff, 96 partners and more than 360 solicitors, the firm has 6 offices based in Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, London, Manchester and Norwich. Since 2004, Mills & Reeve has been consistently recognised as one of the Sunday Times’ top companies to work for. Its key objective has always been to offer client a superior user experience and this continues to be a central driver today.

Wireless Dilemma
Clients visiting Mills & Reeve’s offices are used to enjoying a first-class experience and maintaining this satisfaction has always been a strong focus. As a law firm, the company needed technology solutions that were secure in particular, because of the sensitive information that the company carries and transfers, and therefore the connections to the internet needed to be rugged and impenetrable.

As remote working is on the increase, Mills & Reeve also needed to have robust, consistent and flexible access to the internet, with no risk of connections dropping or slow upload and download speeds. This is because the firm’s work increasingly has to be undertaken at multiple sites and several internal access points are needed to allow users to move around the building and not be fixed to a static point.

Similarly, brand recognition was important and the firm wanted a solution that was familiar and consistent, to ensure that when customers logged on they were aware of the site they had entered. In a crowded market it is difficult to stand apart from your competitors and not fall behind and Meraki’s ability to allow customers and staff to enjoy a familiar interface was a useful tool for gaining competitive advantage.

Choosing Best Of Breed
Mills & Reeve chose to work with reseller Vcentral to implement its WiFi solution. Dave Bradshaw, Technical Support Analyst for Mills & Reeve, comments on what made Meraki the unanimous choice: “Meraki’s position in Gartner’s magic quadrant is enviable and although I was impressed by the quality and capabilities of the technology in the demonstration I received, I would have been concerned with championing a solution that had not entered Gartner’s quadrant. In June 2012, Meraki was positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of the First Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure; further critical acclaim that, combined with my own experiences, made choosing Meraki a no-brainer.”

Standing Out In The Cloud
Meraki delivers its solution via the Cloud and moving to a cloud-managed service was a successful and seamless transition for Mills & Reeve. Previously the company had a centralised controller that hosted all of the information on the firm’s network and was therefore difficult to access and use. As a cloud-based infrastructure, Meraki is very scalable and capable of handling a considerable amount of information on a hosted server. This means that the reliability of the wireless is increased and the chances of the website crashing are minimal. The management of Meraki also takes place in the cloud and the remote hosting of the network servers and services means that this process is simple and uncomplicated.

Meraki’s out-of-the-box enterprise security capabilities ensure that Mills & Reeve’s network remains secure from attacks and enforces the right policies for each class of users – adding double the protection to an already robust network. Meraki’s ease of installation and deployment has enabled Mills & Reeve to establish a robust network within thirty minutes and have applications working straight away. Adding extra networks after the initial set-up process was an even easier activity for the firm; all 3 all-purposing access points in different offices up were up and running in under an hour. The reporting capabilities of Meraki and the ease of use and visibility on the network has allowed Mills & Reeve to be aware of exactly what is happening on the network and why.

Competitive Advantage
Marketplace perception is critical in today’s tough economic climate and Mills & Reeve believe that to be viewed as the best you need to offer the best. Dave explains: “It is an important aim of every business to not fall behind your competitors and failing to provide best of breed technology is a sure way to fail. Users are now used to having the most high-tech user experience at their fingertips and simply will not settle for any less. Technology is no longer only the concern of the IT department or only relevant to highly technologically-centric companies. Being at the forefront of leading technology is important to us and since implementing Meraki we have received a positive response from our users, who have commented that our wireless offering is excellent, offering a faster, easier and more reliable experience.”

Exending The Meraki Experience
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is an initiative that Mills & Reeve is keen to embrace and the firm is looking into ways to increase productivity by facilitating this new trend. Without Meraki, Dave comments, the company would not have been able to entertain the idea, but that having experienced the technology’s capabilities first-hand, it is now an achievable goal. Meraki will allow Mills & Reeve to implement a BYOD strategy that is cost-effective and increases productivity without compromising on profit.

Dave concludes: “Meraki’s technology is truly light-years ahead of anything else on the market and our plan is to implement this product further into our company. We’re planning to roll out Meraki in our last two offices and, whilst at the moment we only provide wireless for client access, we’re working with Cloud Distribution and Vcentral to look at WiFi enabling all offices with full wireless away from desks. I am one hundred percent confident that Meraki will make this a seamless transition. Judging by our experience so far, if we do have any problems, the team is incredibly helpful and responsive and will be there every step of the way.”

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